- November 2016
The Marlowe Showcase is an opportunity for 12-14 graduating actors to perform one or two monologues or duologues in front of industry professionals (including agencies and casting directors) and be directed by a professional Director. Returning as 2015's professional Director is Nicholas Barter, former Principal of RADA (1993-2007) and former Artistic Director of the Arts Theatre.
- November 2016
You are cordially invited to the weird and wonderful world of Crazy Walls!
For the very first time since 'The Reckoning', two urchins are opening the blast doors to their underground bunker which looks a lot like the Corpus Playroom.
With so many characters to re-live and such little time before the radiation curfew kicks in, treat yourself to an hour of fast-paced, action-packed, utter nonsensical character comedy.
You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll probably get radiation poisoning.
Join Riss, join Henry and leave your sense and sensibility at the door.
- November 2016
"A job is a wage and a wage is a cage in a town like mine."
Carl doesn't fit in at home. He doesn’t fit in anywhere. When he signs up for the army, he sees it as a chance to escape the grim reality of life in his hometown. But the army takes him to Afghanistan. And when he comes home, it’s not as a war hero but as a changed man. Winner of a 2011 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Britannia Waves the Rules is an arresting look at conflict and its effect on soldiers returning home to a world they no longer know how to cope with, and a society that doesn’t know how to cope with them.
- November 2016
Scenes from A Void is a work for incurable insomniacs, people who are completely unsure, people who wake up with their brain in a whirl. Perec’s original text was written without using the letter E, this absence becomes an intense metaphor for loss, distraction, and nothingness - it is the invisible backbone of his dizzying, swirling novel.
Scenes from A Void is a modern opera / musical theatre piece. I have set to music responses by 8 different poets. These poets are responding to a substantial portion of the tenth chapter of Gilbert Adair’s translation of Perec’s A Void. My opera is comprised of six musical events in total: ridiculous, violent, amorous, introspective re-writings of famous, wonderful works of poetry including Milton, Shelley, and Poe. The subject matter of each very different poem drives the narrative of the work and the emotional subject matter moves quickly and heavily. Each half, lasting roughly 25-30 minutes, contains 3 arias.
Scenes from A Void is currently scored for a small chamber ensemble of flute (doubling piccolo), oboe, clarinet in Bb, bassoon, a percussionist (vibraphone, glockenspiel, some cymbals and small drums), an electric guitar, two violins, a viola, a ‘cello, and a piano. The singing cast would consist of two tenors and a soprano, these would operate a two small percussion batteries set either side of the stage. The singing cast steps in and out of center stage to operate these batteries and in doing so act as a type of chorus. These percussion batteries consist of found objects amplified with contact microphones to make unusual, sometimes ridiculous, sounds. I am able to receive help from of a number of musicians and directors who have been involved with ADC productions. In viewing these texts in an abstract manner I hope to find and dialogue with new methods of expressive engagement
The development of the material- physical movement, auxiliary percussion, and more standard music into more unusual, unsettling realms is central to this work. I want to create a real sense of upset, distress, and searching in response to the crushing feelings of absence that pervade the text. One way I hope to take the music in this direction is by manipulating the microtonally-tuned strings of an electric guitar to literally create rhythm from harmony by constantly altering the fixed pitches of differently-tuned strings. I want to purposefully cause the critical bandwidths of two or more complex sounds to interact in changing ways over periods of time, this causes pulsations of changing rates – the audience will perceive the actual physical movements of these sounds interacting and the cast will have a visceral musical world to react and engage with. Pushing the cast to respond to these particularly visceral sounds is a further example of my interest in engaging with new modes of expression – navigating spaces between choreographed movement and musical sound in service of blurring expressive boundaries. New methods of artistic expression should become apparent in the spaces that separate different forms of artistry. Above all, however, these ideas work together to create an ambitious, performable, expressive, exciting work of musical theatre.
Scenes from a Void immerses its audience in distraction, indulgence, and emptiness - an exhausting exploration of being without identity in this plural age.
http://scenesfromavoid.wixsite.com/scenesfromavoid
https://www.corpusplayroom.com/whats-on/musical/scenes-from-a-void.aspx
- November 2016
I want to tell you a story. It will be creepy, it will be unexpected, and it may just drive you crazy.
Roald Dahl delighted our childhoods with little Charlie Bucket and sparky Matilda Wormwood, but in the adult world, the end is not always happy. Comfy yourself on cushions with a warming mug of something and watch Roald Dahl’s short stories explode before your eyes with film, music and physical theatre. Terrifying and exhilarating, this is one golden ticket.
- November 2016
Auguste Deter is the first patient recorded to have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Before giving a diagnosis, Dr. Alzheimer recorded extensive interviews with Auguste Deter, many of which ended in her exclaiming "Oh, God!...I have lost myself, so to say"
Modern day Britain. A man explores a dusty apartment. Each object thrusting him back into his past.
Follow Augustus as he pieces together fragments of a life he has forgotten, a life full of love, loss and heartbreak.
He is on a collision course with his past. If only he could just remember...
- November 2016
We’re all just big babies with puberty hairs aren’t we?
A child giggles and breaks into a broad grin, revealing not only the remains of their fish-finger sandwich, but also a prized set of gleaming, pale yellow baby teeth. They flash their glinting, porcelain pegs like the proud owner of a fully stocked china shop.
The lower middle teeth are the first to go. The top-centre is next. We shed our skin of youth and progress, tentative and mouth-bald, into adulthood. Join these four diphyodonts as they lose their baby teeth in Corpus Playroom, and attempt to tackle their big teeth, and the big questions of life. John, Christian, James and Eve present Milk Teeth: a deciduous sketch show.
From the people who brought you VOXPOP: A Sketch Show, Black Comedy, Judge Judy’s Buzz World: The Footlights Harry Porter Prize Winner 2016, Walnut Sanchez and The Macaroni Saga: Edinburgh Fringe 2016, Black Tie Smoker 2016 and various Footlights smokers.
‘Christian Hines is tightly wound’ - The Evening Standard
‘Christian Hines has rebelled disastrously but intelligently’ - The Reviews Hub
‘Delaney is a studious goody-two-shoes’ - bargaintheatreland.com
'John Tothill brought his own saucy flair to the proceedings' - CTR
‘Everything I wanted a Cambridge sketch show to be: it was intelligent, entertaining and oftentimes bizarre. Probably in that order. Well worth attending if you want an evening of laughter, and potentially frozen peas’ - CTR
- November 2016
“I used to think I could just replant myself – that exile was a new garden in which to grow. But now my roots are rotting. I’ll stop being a tree and turn into sand.”
Six women meet in exile. They don’t know where they are. They don’t know when, or who, or why. Stuck in this place of placelessness, enclosed and without borders, they search in the sand for memories of home as their identity slips through their fingers. It hasn’t rained in weeks. Medea feels entitled to the last drop. Antoinette is trapped in the attic. Agave is haunted by the image of her son’s severed head. Samasti just got her period. Abhita thinks this is a joke. And Elaheh wants to write down the desert. As tensions run high and the water runs out, the women are forced to unearth their stories.
- October 2016
The Cambridge Impronauts present a pirate-inspired epic created live on stage from audience suggestions with maybe a couple improvised sea shanties too. All acting, words, twists, music and lyrics will be made up on the spot. Don't believe we're improvising? Well, just to make sure, you tell us the treasure we seek, our pirate names, our characters' backstories (and more) and we will create an hour long swashbuckling adventure in which we attempt to include it all. Who will make the crew? Where will we be setting sail? All this is in your hands!
- October 2016
This is the tale of Jonah, Sophie, and a fox called Scruffilitis. It's a love story. A dysfunctional, voyeuristic and darkly funny love story, but a love story all the same.
- October 2016
Join us for this evening of new writing! The Fletcher Players bring you Smörgåsbord: a brand-new festival showcasing the most exciting and original extracts from emerging student playwrights.
Hosted at the Corpus Playroom, this is a casual opportunity for writers to have their work performed on-stage, with the chance for the pieces to be discussed and critiqued afterwards by the audience.
Unlike many other writing festivals, there are no limits to the works being presented – they can be complete plays, extracts from a larger piece, or rough first drafts – as long as they are between 5 and 10 minutes in length.
- October 2016
~ cn ~
this is not a play.
You expected something.
You expected something else perhaps.
You expected objects.
You expected no objects.
You expected an atmosphere.
You expected a different world.
You expected no different world.
In any case, you expected something.
It may even be the case that you expected what you are hearing now.
But even in that case you experienced something different.
You chuckle-heads, you small-timers, you nervous nellies, you fuddy-duddies, you windbags, you sitting ducks, you milksops.
Come be offended!
- October 2016
“Now is the time to throw off our chains, to dance footloose upon the earth, to carpe some f***ing diem. We’ve earned tonight, gentlemen.”
Join the Riot Club, an elite group of privately-educated Oxford undergraduates, as they gather for their termly dinner in a hired room of a family-run pub. Taking place over the course of one evening, the dinner begins with hilarity and amusing drunkenness, but quickly descends into something darker. Be amused, then alarmed, by a series of increasingly disturbing jokes and disputes with the pub owner, his daughter, and a call girl. It will be a night of drinking. It will be a night of surprises. It will be a night that both the boys, and you, won’t be able to forget. The play that inspired the popular film ‘The Riot Club’, Posh is at once hilarious and disturbing, distantly elitist and yet uncomfortably close to home.
- October 2016
'Someone's after you, you're hunted.'
Meet the Howie Lee and the Rookie Lee, two men with nothing in common except a last name and an ill-fated spiral of events. Celebrated Irish playwright Mark O'Rowe's 1999 critically acclaimed drama is a two-hander of two halves, taking a nightmarish dive into the darkest depths of human behaviour. Known for his intense, lyrical verse and blistering imagery, O'Rowe litters this visceral tragedy with ruinous violence and surprising comic twists.
- October 2016
'O heart of mine, steel thyself!'
Euripides's dark and brilliant tale of sexual revenge comes to the Corpus Playroom for the first time.
Medea is a foreign woman in a hostile country. For the sake of her husband Jason she has betrayed her family and left her homeland. When she is abandoned by him in favour of a younger wife she is left with nothing. Facing banishment and separation from her children Medea begs for one day's grace. It is enough. Propelled into action by her unflinching sense of justice and constantly affirmed by her desire to see it done, she sets to work to exact a terrible revenge.
- October 2016
Debut ego-trip from Footlight Ruby Keane. Join this self-proclaimed human for an hour(ish) of surreal(ish) stand-up(ish) comedy. All proceeds from the show will go to The Little Princess Trust: http://www.littleprincesses.org.uk
Kind words from strangers:
“It is extremely refreshing to see such absurd humour” - The Tab
“Surreal is taken to new heights” - TCS
"A unique and hilarious brand of slow, absurdist comedy" - Broadway Baby
- October 2016
The last time Detective James Macaroni saw the evil drug baron Walnut Sanchez, it was at the centre of the earth.
Years later, in a town full of cops who don’t play by the rules, Macaroni’s obsessive respect for due process makes him the greatest maverick of all… Still haunted by his past, investigates a spate of missing persons - but as the witnesses pile up, it seems all is not as it seems. Or so it seems…
Like a psychic at a salsa class, Sanchez is always one step ahead. Slowly, Macaroni meanders to redemption, but not before meeting a whole host of offbeat characters: a couple of country club toffs; a mad old lady hellbent on wasting police time; a charity worker with the unfortunate voice of an evil genius; and many, many more. It’s all quite weird. But we think you’ll like it.
Previous praise:
“Puns that melt your face” - CTR
“Fresh, original, and brilliantly self-aware” - Tab
***** - BroadwayBaby, EdFringeReview, Varsity
- July 2016
- June 2016
Kenneth Watton, five-time [###SYSTEM ERROR####]M.ï√°c@fireside3>â¶åûÛÔWarm///wet///GñIP¨ûêüúü$///winner of love/Ω®ú)42424242/shining array of guests. This may well be your last opportunity to see í’‰¨’=¸ôH¿~Œ±M"ù2óP'îÜ¿ [Sandra, what’s going on where are my] «àÇ£x˛∑í-?±0D+˛YPƒ slippers: flÓóàøÄ*≤t’|ZÁ most famous beard. Cast away your catalogues >ˇª˜àŸnHP©—Ë°ÚÛ€"U9YcUœEèıRŒ come all, to the Cprous Playroom! ‘;∆ˇ?®ê&ÆD$’TtNfl›ß62 the man himself.
Retiring host Kenneth Watton stretches out the laugh lines one last time. Join a sparkling line-up of guests for a final fling with the madrigal maestro.
- June 2016
Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘Woman in Mind’ is a painful comedy about the breakdown of a middle-class housewife, Susan, presented from her perspective. Two families cohabit in Susan’s mind: her real family (her dreary Reverend of a husband, insipid sister-in-law and son who's disappeared after joining a cult) and her imagined family (the ‘perfect’ husband, doting brother and admiring daughter.) Gerald, the real husband, is apathetic, unsupportive and unsympathetic. His sister is a pain. Meanwhile, the GP is trying to flirt with Susan. As Susan gets worse, the two worlds begin to blur: the imagined family becomes nightmarish, no longer under her control.
Mock the dysfunctional which resembles your life all too much! Bask in the satisfaction of watching supposed perfection fall apart! Reflect upon the pain behind the humour. What better catharsis than comedy?
Swinging between the poignant and the ridiculous, this play is as heart-breaking as it is hilarious.
- June 2016
23 what? 23 pleases? 23 hours in a day? We know that the number 23 is crucial. We don’t know why. This sketch show hasn’t happened, isn’t happening and will not happen. But don’t let that stop you coming to see it.
A brand new sketch show from Footlights and co Enrico Hallworth, Adam Woolf, and Rufus McAlister.
Previous Praise:
"A sample of the quirkiness and brilliance of Cambridge’s late-night comedy scene" - Varsity
"Varied, relatable and, most importantly of all, funny" - The Tab
"Innovative and excellent with a glorious bizarreness" - CTR
★★★★★ Varsity
★★★★★ CTR
★★★★½ The Tab
9/10 TCS
- June 2016
Voices In My Head is a one woman, monologue series featuring 5 characters from the past present and future, each examining an abortion narrative contextualized by the time in which they live.
- June 2016
Exams are over but May Week has yet to arrive. You’re still here, but there’s nothing on. It’s not yet summer, but it’s no longer winter. What should you do in the strange time of nothingness they call ‘Week 7’? Go and see "Vox Pop: A Sketch Show", of course!
Entirely written and performed by freshers this sketch show uses "vox pops" at its core and is sure to bring something new to the Cambridge comedy scene!
They’ve literally sacrificed all hopes of getting a 2:2 to make you laugh. The least you could do is buy a ticket.
P.S. If you still have exams on, this counts as revision. We’ve checked with your DoS.
- June 2016
‘Some stories have a happy ending, Dean. You’re allowed to give yourself a happy ending’.
Dean is a sixteen year old transgender boy, waiting for his world to catch up with his mind.
He may be secure in his own identity, but Dean is yet to learn that he has only won the battle, and still needs to win the war, as those around him rocket between acceptance and alienation, straining the foundations of his support network to breaking point. As his parents' marriage crumbles, his own on-again-off-again relationship with childhood sweetheart Josh shudders and struggles to evolve.
In a complex examination of what it means for an individual to transition, Evan Placey’s 2014 drama explores the potency of teenage love, the fragility of family bonds and, above all, the fluidity of both gender and sexuality.
A love story about transition, testosterone and James Dean.
Trigger Warnings: transphobia, mis-gendering, deadnaming, suicide reference, mention of self-harm, dysphoria, mental health
Content Notes: partial nudity, mention of hormones, mention of surgery, swearing, mild violence
- June 2016
You are cordially invited to witness some of ‘the country’s finest minds’ reading the staggering works of literary genius they created as adolescents.
With a programme of earth-shattering poetry, selected letters & diary entries, and highly erotic vicar fiction this is set to be THE highlight of the Cambridge/national/global literary calendar.
Expect live music. (Black tie optional).
- May–June 2016
Wait … what has just happened? Oh.
In the time it takes a butterfly to flap its wings, whole lives fall apart. We collide or even just brush against each other and in that moment, we cause immense changes. Changes that have practical, legal, emotional, relational or societal consequences which no one could have predicted. With each decision we make, we change the world which, in turn, changes ourselves.
Imogen and Jack are spending a Saturday morning in the park with their daughter Sarah who is going off to university soon. There’s cracks in the family relationships. Meanwhile, Ben is having a hard time coping with his loved one’s depression and is putting his own job at risk. At the same time, Melissa struggles being a single parent with only her friend Clare to confide in. But in a blink of an eye, their worlds are turned upside down by a terrible accident.
Do accidents really happen? Or is everything someone’s responsibility? Could all tragedies be avoided? Unlikely.
But once a tragedy does happen, what remains? What is it that made us who we are and how much of ourselves can we hold on to after an accident that split our lives open?
Butterfly Effect is a collaboratively written piece by local playwrights who have been challenged to explore cause and effect via a new dramaturgical approach. This innovative production is being brought to you by WRiTEON in partnership with Twisted Willow Theatre.
- May 2016
Ashes to Ashes, one of Pinter's later, more unknown works, is a harrowing insight into the relationship between married couple Devlin and Rebecca. Devlin's relentless questioning of Rebecca about a former lover leads her to reveal that the lover has played a shocking part in mankind's darkest hour, and Rebecca soons realises that she too feels inextricably linked to this event, but not as perpetrator, rather as a victim. Ashes to Ashes begins as a chilling domestic drama which escalates to an altogether more sinister level, as we are reminded that the personal and the political are often all too indivisible.
- May 2016
“All humanity is here. There's Greed, there's Fear, Joy, Faith, Hope. And the greatest of these … is Money.”
The true story of the US energy giant Enron who found themselves thirty billion dollars into debt, by selling their own debt to themselves and hoodwinking the world into thinking they were making billions of dollars of profit.
The twisted nature of the men and women at Enron is laid bare in a high energy orgy of business, finances and ultimately greed.
Tragedy and savage comedy; foul-language and sex. One of the world’s largest financial scandals is about to get entertaining.
- May 2016
“‘You see…I believe in the god of carnage. He has ruled, uninterruptedly, since the dawn of time.”
Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play and adapted for the big scren by Roman Polanski, The God of Carnage is one the recent masterpieces of contemporary theatre.
Everything starts off from a simple scuffle, when the eleven-year old Benjamin knocks out two of his friend’s Henry, teeth with a stick. Their parents meet to discuss how best to straighten out the children’s unruly behaviour. What starts off as a civilized, well-intentioned evening slowly degenerates into childish bickering and the “worst day of their life”.Will anyone get out of this ill-fated encounter with their dignity and their liberal principles, not to mention the apartment, intact?
Watch the God of carnage take over in this bold and relentlessly entertaining new production.
- May 2016
Inspired by a treatment method for psychosis in Finland, this experimental play explores the nature of schizophrenia by dividing the Corpus Playroom in two. Each side of the audience will view a different storyline but experience auditory hallucinations from the other side of the wall. We meet a mother and her two sons on the 'domestic' side, and the psychiatrist on the 'public'.
With a small cast and a lot of potential for creativity with staging, costume and unique dialogue, this darkly comic, deeply inventive and honest play will be the most exciting play next term!
- May 2016
friki
fri•ki (free-kee) adj. coloq.
(from English freaky) pejorative word in Spanish meaning weirdo, usually said of a person with unusual interests and character.
Isa Bonachera presents her first full hour of stand-up, come and find out how long you can endure a Spanish accent.
“a particular brand of genius” The Tab
“really stood out” Varsity
“delightfully deadpan” The Tab
“she puts the audience at ease and instantly sent them into hysterics” The Tab
“hilarious” Wolfson Howler Promo
ALL PROCEEDS WILL BE DONATED TO THE AGAINST MALARIA FOUNDATION
- May 2016
It is 4th October, 1957, the launch of the Earth's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1; thousands wait with baited breath; a beach ball spins elegantly through space; the stage is set. David Hastings' critically acclaimed play comes to the stage for the first time since its sellout world tour six years ago, now explosively reimagined for the Cambridge theatre scene. Two actors tell the story of one of the most unique decades in our history, The Space Race. From its flash point in 1957 to the climactic Apollo 11 landing, join a roller coaster journey of epic proportions and intimate realities, the entire tale told with the most ordinary of objects, in the most extraordinary way. One Small Step is a highly entertaining and compelling look at the people and the politics of the Space Race, weaving its way through a decade which still defines the way we live today.
- May 2016
Three strangers are about to face their demons head on. Balanced precariously on the tipping point, they might just be able to save one another – if they can only over come their urge to self destruct.
- April 2016
‘Strange Bedfellows’ is a new sketch show that revels in the ridiculous. The news is changing the way we think and it is also changing the way we do not think. Every day we are bombarded with thousands upon thousands of news stories that run from the terrifying to the ridiculous, from the measured to the reactionary, from the mundane to the life-changing. We know more than ever, yet understand so little. And sometimes the only rational reaction is to laugh.
Painfully real and joyfully absurd, ‘Strange Bedfellows’ is as incongruous and micro-managed as its subject matter. Expect big laughs, fast-paced comedy, and a whole lot of fun.
From writers and performers of ‘Switch’ ( - Varsity), ‘Farewell Tim’ ( - CTR), ‘Footlights Presents: Xylophone’ (***** - The Tab), and numerous Footlights smokers.
- April 2016
“Welcome to the world; it’s such a funny place. The people who you love the most are also the ones who make you cry. I’m not sure why.”
Six-year-old Jen Tracy welcomes her newborn brother John into the world, with a warning about the pain the ones you love can cause you…
Set against the backdrop of a changing America between 1950 and 1990, "john & jen" follows the story of Jen and her relationships with the two Johns in her life: her brother, and his namesake, her son.
A chamber musical beautifully scored by Tony nominee Andrew Lippa, composer of "The Addams Family", "john & jen" is Lippa’s overlooked masterpiece.
Chock-full of wit, sparkle and touching ballads, at its heart John & Jen is a moving portrayal of family: of brother and sister, and of mother and son.
- April 2016
Inspired by the timeless universe of Disney’s animated musical features, princesses, monsters, talking animals, witches, toys, snowmen, and new completely reimagined characters are all singing improvised songs in this roller-coaster of a show! Join Alice on her adventures in improvland, and explore the jungle of improvised wordplay, voyage deep under surface of scripted theatre, visit the less family friendly part of Neverland, and tour the kingdom of funky, fresh improvised rhythms.
